Category Archives: Top-Ten Blogs 2005

A beautiful sunset on the holiday island of Koh Samet

Living upcountry in Thailand, X’mas was just another day and I didn’t indulge in any merry festivities, which anyway, were not…..happening around town. In fact, I think the closest I got to a feel of X’mas was being served by a couple of naughty looking Beer Singha Promotion girls dressed-up in some short kinky Santa Clause outfit at the Beer Garden just down the road.

The Thais may not exactly celebrate X’mas that much, but New Year (1st Jan) is another splendid time of the year for the locals to throw a wild party. Great country this is, Thailand! Just import lots of other national holidays and celebrate them too! Halloween? Valentines? X’mas? Chinese New Year? Bring them all in, wonderful excuse to have a mad party, get drunk and gamble on cards every month! And you wonder why I don’t go back to England!

The response so far to my own top ten has been pretty decent and I’m delighted that some of the readers have taken time and wandered back to look at some of me older stuff. So here it is, my own final… top three blogs of the year:

3) Thai Ladyboys

And I am not joking! You be may wondering how I had the darned nerve to stick this in the top three – well that’s pretty easy to answer. A lotta unique viewers get through to thai-blogs every day through search engines and definitely Google. If you thought that key-words for finding ‘stevesuphan’s blogs’ were in the form of ‘Teaching in Thailand’, ‘Getting Married in Thailand’ or ‘Saucy Thai singers’ then I am afraid to inform you – NO! You would be amazed to the amount of readers we get coming here everyday looking for info on ‘Thai Ladyboys’.

Search phrases along the lines of ‘Ladyboy’ probably outrank even those other two hits of mine along the lines of ‘Dos and Don’t’s/ Thailand’ and ‘Thai girls’. On top of this, a myriad of readers latched on to this blog of mine and sent it whizzing around to other blogsites. It was the first ‘actual proper’ blog of mine that really punched readership power. Love it or hate it, it tells a variety of witty stories about the one and only…..Thai Ladyboy. Even a couple of serious points were mentioned too, to even things up. I think the blog offers good insight for newbie foreigners interested in Thai Ladyboys. It is a fun blog and not to be taken seriously!

2) Down and out……in Cambodia

This blog told of the horrifying ghastly saga of an extremely hunfortunate Hungarian going by the name of….Mr Tammas. From just needing to pop over the Cambodian border to renew his Thai visa, the poor fellow very soon had his passport, credit cards and cash stolen by a heartless razor-sharp thief. Money and passportless, Mr Tammas is soon stuck behind bars in a Khmer cell with a thousand cockroaches and smelly inmates for company. Finally arriving in Phnom Penh, he was bitterly aghast at the lack of diplomatic relations with the former east-bloc country and left to clean the floors and make ghoulash at one of the capital’s lousiest guesthouses.

Now, how the heck did this shortish blog managed to reach number two in a list of 50+ blogs? The answer? – word of mouth. Just a few weeks after that blog I went and joined up with a few of the ex-pat community here in Suphanburi only to here the likes of “Hey man, that was one gruesome story about that Hungarian guy, our Dutch friend had to go to Poipet for his visa run yesterday and was petrified!”. Geez, the sunfortunate saga of Mr Tammas had spread! Another Farang from Angthong had given all his Farang buddies in that province the awful lowdown on the fate of Mr Tammas! And if that wasn’t enough, I was at my favourite bar/restaurant ‘DDM2’, a Korean gaff located near the National Gallery one day and bumped into an English backpacker who had read a couple of my blogs. The backpacker asked “Do you know whatever happened to that hunfortunate Hungarian who had his passport nicked in Cambodia?” He went on to tell me that he had spread the story like wildfire at the beach resort he was staying at in Koh Phang-ngan! How many others spread the story story of the hapless Hungarian….i just do not know

Of course, Mr Tammas – never existed, I completely made the story up.

Having lived in Cambodia, I heard a variety of different stories about – being banged up in a Khmer cell, lack of diplomatic relationship, passports stolen and corrupt officials. And too right, there was a down-and-out Bahtless Farang working as a cleaner, tout and cook at this guesthouse I was staying at for a while! Stevesuphan’s nastiest wind-up of the year and fortunately….the only one!

1) Dos and don’ts of dating…. a ‘proper’ Thai girl

Without a doubt my top blog of the year. It didn’t just lead me to blogging for thai-blogs in the first place but it set a precendent for future Dos and Don’ts/Thailand blogs. Even though the blog never did make the main page here at thai-blogs, it caught the attention of various other bloggers who thought the blog was decent enough for them to post themselves. Permission sought or not. Due to referers, the blog still brings in unique visitors til this day. At the forums here, it also ended up as one of the most popular threads of the year.

The response to this blog from folks around the world and especially Thai readers was postively and completely unexpected. Received a host of comments and even e-mails from Thai girls and some Farang guys thanking me for the advice and my appreciation of ‘proper’ Thai girls. Ironically, the only negative feedback I got was from a couple of Farang guys who informed me to the likes of…“I don’t need your advice on how to date a Thai girl, if she doesn’t like me for who I am then she can bugger off!” In fact a lot of the support for this blog from Thai girls read exactly like……this kind of attitude.

‘Dos and don’ts of dating a Farang Guy’ is also one of my most read blogs, and is a witty but slightly serious insight into how us Farang men are seen through the eyes of a Thai girl. Not just Farang-bashing, I served up a bit of revenge in ‘Dos and don’ts for Thais going to Farangland’

Sees yous all soon after the hols….

AND HAVE A DARNED-….. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Heroes of Bangrajan

I don’t know about you guys but I’ve been suffering from an awful cold for the past few days brought on by the hellish freezing cold weather. So cold in Suphanburi that half me students have been coming to class wearing a Liverpool scarf, gloves and a big wooly miner’s hat. A couple of days back the temperature dropped to 14c shockingly low for the central plains! I always say, as a foreigner, you know when you have been in Thailand too long when you find yourself waddling around complaining to the likes of “Darned cold weather!”

Over the past year thai-blogs has certainly been through a few ups and downs and witnessed the coming and going of many a blogger who finally fled the scene never to be heard of again! What I do know is that a couple of bloggers did feel rather pished at the lack of comments posted. But geez, I felt a bit the same way here when I first starting blogging. Stuck up that massive pretty confidential ‘Working Undercover’ blog and got one darned comment (at that time)! And, even that was posted by the Webmaster. So, for any budding newbie blogger – don’t be distracted by any lack of comments. Just believe in what the Webmaster has to say on this matter, and that is “Don’t worry about it, your blogs are being read”

So, for the second part of this mini series here are the next three:

6) Gimme A Break Part One

Not only one of my own personal favourites, this was the blog that set the trend of delving into a treasure trove of quack-wack stories from Thailand’s newspapers about quack-wack criminals with an IQ count of a beaver. Not one for just bashing Thai folks, the unwanted scummy foreign elements also got a hiding in part two. Personally, even though the blog holds some of the wackiest stuff to hit the media over the years the pitiful blog graces an….astonishing – ONE comment! The story of ‘Ai Dum’ the ferocious beast of ‘Taling Chan’ which terrified the capital, made national headlines for weeks on end and even secured the intervention of the Prime Minister at that time. Personally, the story of ‘Ai Dum’ is my all time favourite and an absolute classic case of a complete national balls-up. Have a look. Other stories on that blog including the naughty goings-on of the nation’s monks, govt lottery players and boys-in-power set a precendent for future blogs. Part Three will be out next year.

5) How To…..Write A Thai Soap Opera

Sure, i had to post at least one recent blog in this top-ten and after a bitta consideration i chose this one. Even though i’ve acted as a main character in a few of the country’s soapies, i’m thankfully NOT a big fan. I just sat down one night and thought “What about writing a blog on Thai Soap Operas?” i surprised myself with this one and was pleased with the result. I think it is one of my better blogs as, as one commenteer posted – something along the lines of…. “I haven’t read anything like this before”. The blog is not only a complete pish-take of Thai Soap Operas in general but it is also serious in its own way. I wanted it to explain the sometimes quite blatant stereotype of different classes and regions of people within Thai society itself. Soap Operas anywhere have a deep influence on how people think and especially Thailand. ‘How To Write a Thai Soap Opera’ snatches number five, one – for ‘originalities’ sake and two – ‘it’s one of my favourites’.

4) Learn 300 words of Thai in 5 Minutes!

Without a doubt, ‘Learning 300 words of Thai in 5 minutes’ was the most time-consuming and brain-wracking blog i posted this year. I ended up spending 2-3 days endlessly grating my brains thinking of imported English words used within Thai language. Then on top of that, i chose to differentiate all this vocabulary and break it up into three sections. Quite a task, but the result in my opinion, was better than anything else i have seen written on this subject, and im not one for usually complimenting myself. In fact, my biggest critic is myself, im rarely satisfied with my own blogs. Cause of refers, this blog ended up to be one of my most viewed blogs helping to bring in a whole load of newbie readers. My other blog on learning Thai was ‘Farang Speak Thai’ which, according to my journalist blogging buddy – The BKKInkslinger, perhaps the best stevesuphan blog of the year – with ‘How To Write a Thai Soap Opera’ running a close second.

Will be back very soon with my own Top Three.

MERRY X’MAS!

The ancient capital of Ayutthaya

To bring in the one year, and nearing 100,000 words of thai-blogs I thought I would take the opportunity this week, with the gifted advice of the webmaster once again, to write up a three part mini-series on my own ‘top-ten’ blogs of the year.

But before that, I would first like to thank all the readers for turning thai-blogs.com into the biggest blogspot about Thailand on the Net. I pride myself in that thai-blogs has risen to the top without having to succumb to the same old ‘Thai girlie bar theme’ which plaques other related blogspots and especially forums.

So, how did I get started at thai-blogs? Quite simply I had been a regular at thailandlife forums for a while and after writing up a successful topic starter entitled ‘Dos and don’ts…of dating a ‘proper’ Thai girl’, it was Richard the Webmaster himself who invited me to post at thai-blogs. The rest of the story is history.

It wasn’t exactly easy composing such a list but I finally chose the ones, which after having been written, gave me the inspiration for future blogs along the same lines. Others in the list either accidentally brought in a whole load of new readers or were chosen by myself personally as being some of my better work. Some of the blogs on the list may surprise a lot of you and especially the one which I have chosen at number two which turned into one of the most talked about ex-pat stories in my hometown of Suphanburi and even made the rounds in the backpacker community. Literary scared the wits out of a darned lotta people.

So here it is:

10) The Story of N’Candy

I hadn’t been around at thai-blogs that long and was still wondering to just how many folks out there were actually reading my quack-wack blogs. The pretty horrific story of the birth of my daughter, was my ‘foot in the door’ at thai-blogs – N’Candy struck a chord with a lot of the readers and I was delighted with the warm response I received. Even this year, on meeting up with a few of the folks here at thai-blogs, one of the first things I was asked was along the lines of….“So, how is N’Candy doing?” Since I wrote up that blog, not much has changed and Candy is still in Ayutthaya with her grandmother. I’m still planning to take charge of her this coming school year and put her into kindergarten here in Suphanburi after I heard through the grapevine that Candy’s mom hasn’t even been bothered to return home and visit her for the past three months. Now, let’s not get too personal here Steve! Oooops… The story of N’Candy made the list in that it was the first blog that had me realize the scope, numbers, and kind-heartedness of our readers. It was also my only truly ‘personal’ blog which wasn’t witty in anyway!

9) The Funnier Side of Teaching

This one made the top-ten as it was the first blog to reveal the real ins and outs and a behind the scenes look at teaching. Unfortunately, it wasn’t read that much when it originally made the main page which was a kind of a pity, as I felt at the time, that I had really let loose a few of own pretty confidential ‘teaching stories’. It was also the first blog that helped inspire other quite personal insights and loads more blog-stuff on teaching in Thailand. After a good response from some readers who either commented or mailed me saying that they’d like to read other privatey kinda stuff, I continue to keep up with that style of content til this day.

8) Working Undercover

It had originally been entitled ‘Doin The Bust’ but I changed that to ‘Working Undercover’ after advice from the Webmaster. It was the first and only blog that ‘really’ spilled the beans! I had to stick this into my top-ten of the year just for ‘originalities’ sake. You’re gonna find it hard trying to come across another such story on the Net. It was a completely true story which told the time of being employed by a film firm, on a part-time basis, to help bust counterfeiters knocking off dodgy DVDs on the streets of Bangkok. That was one blog which I dug out of the archives as I had originally written it up to sell off to a Bangkok based publication. We argued a bit over the length of the story and the low fee offered and eventually, I never did bother selling it to them. My longest blog to date and was spiced up even more after the webmaster stuck in headlines along the lines of ‘I was an undercover cop!’ Not my finest piece of writing but the story is a pretty unique one…to say the least!

7) The Ghost Eater

I had been having a bevvie at the local shop near my school, when the owner ‘Mrs. Auntie’ pointed out to me a fascinating story in the Thai Raj newspaper about this ex-convict who had been arrested and immediately freed after he had been caught eating the remains of a local grannie whose body had been rest to lay in the woods before her cremation day. After reading that, I just had to write a blog and the result, in my opinion, was pretty good. It reached my top-ten as it had me realize how much of a treasure trove of Thai stories there were, which had never been translated into English. The Webmaster cottoned onto the potential of such stories straight away, and now , 8 months later, I am currently working on translating other weird but wonderful stories for my latest ‘Thai Stories Section’ at learningthai.com.

Will be back with some more…very soon.